


Faeted Outtakes: Couples Counseling

by megzseattle



Series: Faeted [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Established Relationship, Fae & Fairies, Fae Crowley (Good Omens), Human Aziraphale (Good Omens), Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Non-Human Crowley (Good Omens), Therapy, Unseelie Court, relationships are really hard, talking it out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:34:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28966905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megzseattle/pseuds/megzseattle
Summary: Shortly after Crowley shows up on Ezra's door at the end of Faeted 2, they start working at putting things back together. Which means Crowley has to put his money where his mouth is, and put in the work. Luckily, Anathema has a great recommendation for them.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Faeted [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1648102
Comments: 21
Kudos: 53





	Faeted Outtakes: Couples Counseling

**Author's Note:**

> I have been free-writing random scenes that will appear somewhere in the midst of Faeted3, which led to this piece, which started to take on a life of its own and became a freestanding story. This takes place just shortly after Crowley shows up at Ezra's door and they first talk. 
> 
> Caveat: If you haven't read Faeted 1&2, this won't make a lot of sense to you. In brief, Crowley is a fae lord and Ezra is a human and they've been having a tumultuous relationship for the last two years, ending in a breakup. Only a few select humans know the truth about who Crowley is, and their counselor is _not_ among them. Or rather, she has been gifted with the truth but has chosen to interpret it as metaphor.

“I hear that perhaps talking with a third party can be useful in these situations,” Ezra said. “A neutral perspective to help negotiate big questions. Like mortality. And power dynamics. And to learn how to communicate better.”

Crowley considered that one in silence. His gut reaction was an immediate, hard no. No negotiation. He was the dark lord of the Unseelie and he did not sit with another person and discuss his intimate feelings. He hardly even talked about them to Ezra sometimes.

 _Perhaps that’s part of the problem_ , a little voice in his head said.

He offered a choice finger to that little voice, mostly out of habit, but the comment still registered. And he did tell Ezra he’d do whatever was needed.

Ezra, to his credit, stirred his tea and waited patiently while Crowley obviously wrestled with his thoughts.

“Who would we talk to?” he finally said, feeling out of his depth.

Ezra stirred another spoon’s worth of honey into his tea. “Anathema knows someone who does couples counseling. She’s part of the coven, so on the open-minded side. Specializes in power dynamics.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Okay,” he said. “Set it up.”

\--

“Delilah Shirer?” Crowley read off the office door. “What kind of marriage counselor names herself Delilah? If there’s any discussion whatsoever of me cutting my hair I promise you I will be out that door before you can –”

“Wait, you’ve read the bible?” Ezra asked. “How do you know that story?”

“Oh, well,” Crowley mumbled. “I’ve read some things. Parts of it. There are a few of us in it, you know. Generally disguised as demons and such.”

Ezra looked at him suspiciously. “Are _you_ in it?”

Crowley grinned. “Maybe the answer to that will come out in therapy, angel.”

Ezra harumphed and pulled the door open, then followed Crowley into the small waiting area and onto a small, nondescript couch.

“Nervous?” Ezra asked.

 _Yes._ Crowley shrugged. “Not really.”

Ezra smiled, not fooled, and took his hand. “Let’s just give it a chance. I appreciate you coming.”

\--

Delilah came out to greet them. She was a middle-aged woman with dark, curly hair held back with clips and a friendly smile. She was wearing long dangly earrings and a necklace made of multiple, large, colored wooden beads, which clattered slightly when she walked. Small and somehow powerful looking, she offered a welcoming hand to shake with each of them in turn, and then shepherded them into her office, where she quickly got the preliminaries of paperwork and payment terms out of the way, then settled them at two ends of a couch and took a seat across from them.

“So, what brings you two to me today?” she asked. “Anathema tells me you are both dear friends of hers.”

Ezra looked at Crowley, who made a “go ahead” gesture.

“Well, you see, we’ve recently reconciled, after a bit of a breakup, and we’re hoping to iron out a few of the issues that brought this about with the help of a third party.”

“Very good,” Delilah said. “Can you each give me your view of what it was that led to your breakup? Let’s start with you, Crowley.”

Crowley looked at her with mute horror. “What’s the question?”

“Let’s make this a little easier,” the woman said. “Tell me a little about yourself.”

Oh, much easier, Crowley groaned. How was he supposed to explain himself to a human?

Ezra jumped in to rescue him. “I’m an English teacher at a boys academy, and Crowley is – well, he’s in a very important and stressful top-level leadership position in what you might call a kind of family business. Much of what he does is classified, you understand, I hope?”

“Classified,” Crowley repeated. “That’s right.”

They both watched the therapist make notes.

“We met about two years ago,” Ezra added, “and it was rather rocky at the start. We didn’t get along right away.”

“That’s not uncommon,” Delilah said. “How were things when you got together?”

“Very nice,” Ezra said. “We rather quickly began spending all of our time together. I believe we were – are – very much in love.”

“Yup,” Crowley butted in. “Are. Not were. Very much not were.”

“So, what are the stressors?” Delilah asked. “Let’s start with you, Ezra.”

Ezra thought for a moment. “For one, Crowley – well, he travels for work for long periods, and we spend a portion of every year apart.” He looked at Crowley, who nodded. “And his job and lifestyle have put him in a position where he’s used to being in charge, not being questioned. He tends to keep a lot of things to himself and doesn’t like to share information until it’s absolutely necessary.”

Delilah turned to Crowley. “And what is your perspective on the stressors in your relationship?”

“Everything he said is true.” Crowley said uncomfortably. “But Ezra is also very resistant to change, which contributed. And my job is – well it’s dangerous, and sometimes I can’t tell him everything he wants to know. He doesn’t handle that well. He snoops, and gets himself in the middle of things he should have left to me. It’s caused some trust issues. On both sides.”

“And is that what led to the breakup?”

“In a sense,” Ezra said. “Crowley had – an idea for us, one that would let us be together much longer and all year round, but the price – it had a very high price for me, personally. Giving up a lot of my world, what I know. I couldn’t do it and he couldn’t let it go. We reached an impasse, and I think Crowley felt betrayed when I couldn’t meet him in the middle.”

Delilah made several notes on her pad and then looked between them. “This sounds like an interesting premise for further discussion.”

\--

“She thinks I’m a criminal, you realize,” Crowley said as they slurped noodles at a place down the road.

Ezra coughed on his broth, then recovered himself. “I suppose she probably does,” he admitted. “It would make sense.”

"Some kind of mob boss," Crowley said, with some satisfaction. "And you're my moll."

“Well how delightful,” Ezra said with a wiggle. “I’ve never been someone’s moll before. Shall I dress the part next time?”

Crowley laughed. “Seriously, though. This could go wrong, angel.”

They finished their lunch more quietly.

\--

“It’s just that we’re from different worlds,” Ezra said. “It’s hard to overstate the magnitude of differences in our backgrounds and upbringings.”

Delilah put her pen down and looked him in the eye. “Many lovers feel that way about their beloved. The sensation of being from different planets is very common.”

Ezra frowned. “No, but really, it’s different with us. You’ll have to take my word on that.”

“We really _are_ from different worlds,” Crowley added helpfully.

“Let’s explore that more, shall we?” Delilah said, putting her notebook aside and leaning forward to dig into the topic more fully.

\--

“I’m getting the idea that you’re both holding something major back from me,” Delilah said. “I respect your privacy and won’t force it, but I can’t help with what I don’t know about.”

Crowley, hunched forward and clutching his knees in a position that telegraphed his discomfort, looked at Ezra, who shrugged. _Go ahead_.

“I’m going to live a lot longer than he is,” Crowley blurted out, then he flopped back on the couch.

“How do you know that, Crowley?” Delilah asked. “None of us really know what fate has in store for us.”

“Trust me,” Crowley said flatly. “I know. I come from a very, very long-lived line.”

“Ezra, how do you feel about this statement?” Delilah asked.

“It’s not news to me that he feels that way,” Ezra said. “He probably _will_ outlive me. But nothing is guaranteed. He could get killed by a bus tomorrow.”

“You know a bus couldn’t kill me,” Crowley said.

“Oh, you know what I mean,” Ezra bit off. “Stop being difficult.”

“Ezra, is there any reason to assume you won’t live a long and full life?” Delilah asked. “You aren’t ill, are you?”

“Oh no,” Ezra said, patting his gut a little uncomfortably. “Fit as a fiddle for the most part. But, well, Crowley’s people do tend to live a very long time. It’s almost as if – imagine if one of us was mortal and the other was not.”

Delilah looked at them both. “You two seem to have… almost a mythology you’ve developed around your relationship. It’s a very interesting dynamic. _From another world. Crowley’s people. Mortality and fate_. I’ve not run into many people who use these metaphors, but I think they hold a lot of power as a storytelling mechanism. We should dig further into that.”

Crowley met Ezra’s eyes and gave a split-second grin that was gone almost before it started.

“I think that’s a brilliant idea,” Crowley said. “I’m much more comfortable speaking in stories.”

Ezra raised an eyebrow and straightened his cuffs. Whatever got Crowley talking was probably a good thing, he supposed. He wasn’t about to demur this late into the game. 

\--

They got into a routine of going to their couples counseling appointment twice a week, then immediately going out for a nice lunch after. Sometimes they talked through what they had just been discussing with Delilah, and sometimes they were mostly quiet as they thought through different things. Sometimes they both agreed, unspoken, that they needed a distraction and ordered too much wine and got into a raunchy and rambling discussion about anything else. And one memorable lunch, they refused to speak to each other at all, glaring sullenly across their wine glasses.

“Is this working, do you think?” Crowley asked one afternoon, as he took a small bite of crème brulee.

“What,” Ezra said, “counseling you mean?”

“Yes.”

“I think it’s been surprisingly effective so far,” Ezra said. “Not always comfortable, but it’s helping me understand you better. What do you think?”

“I think she’s a fool if she doesn’t realize that we are telling her the literal, god-honest truth,” Crowley scoffed. “Story-telling and metaphor as a basis for relationship counseling. She’s probably going to write a paper about us, someday, and develop a revolutionary new technique based on this.”

Ezra smiled. “It has been rather helpful that she’s taken that interpretation of it. Makes it so we have to bend the truth a little less.”

“But it has helped, I suppose,” Crowley said, rubbing his neck. “It’s not comfortable or easy, but she’s certainly getting us to talk about things.”

“We should thank Anathema,” Ezra said. “She made a good recommendation.”

“Oh sure,” Crowley said, rolling his eyes. “Let’s thank witch girl for setting me up to have to share my most intimate feelings with a total stranger twice a week. How about a bouquet of toadstools?”

Ezra grinned. “She’d probably like that very much.”

Crowley made a rude but affectionate noise and went back to his dessert.

\--

“Let’s spend some time today talking about your younger years,” Delilah said one morning. “I’d like to hear about each of your relationships with your mothers.” She looked between them. “Which of you would like to start?”

Crowley took a sip of his takeout coffee. “He would,” he said pointedly.

Ezra made a face but began gamely enough. “Well, my mother – she was a bit cold, distant. Very controlling. My family is old --used to be noble, still fairly wealthy, thinks they’re more powerful than they are. You know the type.”

“Did your mother spend time with you?” Delilah asked.

“My father and she were always out and around -- raising money, giving money, traveling,” Ezra said. “I didn’t see her a lot. And I really didn’t fit in very well, so when she had the time, she usually spent it elsewhere. My two older brothers were easier for her to deal with than me, and my sister was better at fitting in, but I wasn’t so easy to mold.”

“You felt like you were a disappointment to your parents?” Delilah said.

“I did,” Ezra said. “My oldest brother went into the family banking firm and my second oldest is in politics. I suppose it would have been acceptable if I’d become a don at Cambridge or something, but my decision to devote my life to teaching literature to schoolboys has not been popular. Neither was my lack of desire to get married and settle down.”

Delilah made some notes, then turned to Crowley.

“And you?”

Crowley rolled his coffee cup in his hands nervously and then put it down on the table with a thump. He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees.

“Well, honestly, when it comes right down to it,” he drawled, “I didn’t really have a mother that I can remember.”

Delilah made a sympathetic face. “Feelings of abandonment in childhood can have long ranging effects on adults. I think a lot of people feel that way and it can be a devastating –”

“No really,” Crowley broke in, insistent. “I just kind of popped into being in a garden one day, didn’t I? No mum, no dad. Just me and my sister. She essentially raised me.”

“Ah,” she said. “Storytelling again. That’s a good way of putting it, just popping into being. So, let’s talk a bit about your sister.”

Crowley sighed. “How much time do you have?”

\--

“Today we’re going to work on communication skills,” Delilah announced at their next session. “I want you to turn and face each other on the couch.”

They did so.

“And now you’re going to speak to each other about some of the things we’ve been discussing. One of you will tell the other how you feel about something that has happened between you, and the other is going to mirror it back to them to show that they’ve listened and understood. Crowley, you start. Use your ‘I feel’ statements.”

Crowley, hating every minute of this, nonetheless took a moment to pick something that was genuinely true.

“When you steal all the blankets,” he said carefully, “I feel cold.”

Ezra sagged and looked at Delilah. “Really? This is what we’re doing?”

Delilah raised an eyebrow. “Let him start where he’s comfortable, Ezra. Go ahead and practice saying it back.”

Ezra took a deep breath and met Crowley’s eyes. “What I hear you saying is that when I take the covers at night, you feel cold. Is that right?”

“And I can’t ever get them back,” Crowley added, a tad peevishly.

Ezra sighed. “And you can’t ever get them back.”

“Now an emotion statement, like we practiced earlier,” Delilah coached.

“That must be frustrating for you,” Ezra said.

“Good!” Delilah beamed. “Now your turn, Ezra. Start small.”

Ezra didn’t need to give it much thought. “When you say something flippant in moments like these, I feel like you’re not really serious about working things out.”

Crowley blanched and turned to Delilah. “Can he – is he – is that allowed?”

“Of course it’s allowed, Crowley. Now you have to restate it to him.”

“You feel like I’m not serious about this,” Crowley said, flatly.

“And that must make you feel –” Delilah coached him.

“Bad,” Crowley said. “And that must make you feel bad.”

Ezra nodded.

The room fell silent for a moment.

“Crowley?” she asked. “Your turn to make a statement.”

“Fine,” he said, stiffly. “When you wouldn’t agree to extending our time together, I felt abandoned.”

Ezra swallowed. “You’re saying you felt abandoned when I wouldn’t do what you wanted.”

Crowley nodded.

“That must have hurt.”

Crowley nodded again.

“When you left and didn’t come back for three days, I felt like I’d never mattered to you,” Ezra said.

Crowley winced. “You felt – unimportant. Not valued.”

“Yes.”

The silence echoed around the room as they both stared, breathing hard.

It was going to be one of _those_ lunches today.

\--

They made it through the appetizer and half of the main course with only a bit of polite, strained conversations – please pass this, thank you, oh no after you. Finally, Crowley put down his fork with a sigh.

“I do, you know.”

Ezra looked up. “You do what?”

“Value you,” Crowley said. “More than anything. How could you doubt that? Do you think I’d go through this excruciating situation with the lady doctor for anyone else?”

Ezra sighed. “You _left_ me when I wouldn’t do what you wanted.”

“And I was miserable!” Crowley said. “I know better now. It was worse than losing you when you get old, because your life was still going on and it was going on without me and I was _missing_ it.” He picked up a bread roll and savagely tore it in half and then plunked both halves back down on his plate. “I won’t do that to either of us again.”

Ezra’s heart gave a little flop. “I felt much the same,” he said. “I missed you terribly.”

Crowley’s face lightened. “I mean it, Ezra,” he said, intensely. “I can’t promise you that I won’t still be a pain in the arse sometimes; I’m not always going to be easy to get along with and I can’t guarantee that I’m not going to be too forceful sometimes or push you too hard. But I love you and I value you and I accept your lifespan and your decision to stay human and I still want to be with you.”

“How do I know that you’re not going to freak out and leave me when I start to get visibly older? When I get frail? Or when someone else gets killed?” Ezra asked quietly, staring at the tablecloth.

“Because I _love_ you, and I’ve realized I can’t be without you,” Crowley said, leaning forward and laying his hand on top of Ezra’s. “And I pledge it to you. I will cherish every day you can give me, by all the powers in both our worlds.”

They were silent for a moment, letting that sink in. Ezra felt like a vow had just been exchanged. The air reverberated a tiny bit, like a small chime had rung that only they could hear. He shivered a little, feeling as if his inner eye had suddenly opened.

“Also,” Ezra said, “I don’t age that quickly when I’m in your world. Chances are I will live much longer than your average human, spending half of every year in the Fae realms.”

“That’s true,” Crowley said. “Hadn’t thought of that. Maybe we can just focus on that – slowing it down a bit. Cheat a little.”

Ezra turned his hand over beneath Crowley’s and entwined their fingers together. “That’s acceptable. We can cheat. If I can get more time with you without changing my essential nature, I’m all for it. I’d love to be with you as long as I can.”

Crowley felt a sudden burst of warmth radiate out from the center of his chest, like sunlight had just poured through a hole in the clouds. He cleared his throat, and his voice, when it emerged, was gravelly.

“Any interest in getting out of here, angel?” he murmured.

Ezra’s face lit up with a smile and he immediately folded his napkin and placed it on the plate. “Check, please?” he called, raising a hand to their waiter.

It was several days before either of them emerged from the cottage again.

\--

“We came back to say thank you,” Ezra said at their final meeting. “We feel like we’ve made a lot of progress through talking with you, and we’re starting to find our way back together.”

Delilah smiled. “Are you sure you don’t want to continue a little longer?” she asked. “I’d be happy to help.”

Crowley shook his head. “Unfortunately, I’ve got to get back to work this week,” he said.

“And I’m going to go along,” Ezra said. “We’ll be away for a few months.”

“Ah, yes,” Delilah said. “Back to the, what was it you called it? The ‘dark keep’ and the ‘court of light’.” She grinned. “Someday you’ll have to tell me what you really do, Crowley.”

Crowley grinned at her. “Someday I just might.” 

She saw them both to the door, impulsively gave them each a hug, and then waved them off.

The fog that had plagued the morning had burned off and the sun sparkled through the glass door at the front of the building. Crowley reached out to take Ezra’s hand as they stepped out onto the sidewalk, falling comfortably into stride together.

“So, angel,” Crowley said. “Can I tempt you to a spot of lunch?”

“You know you can,” Ezra said with a warm look. “You always can.”

Crowley smiled.

He planned to. He really did. 

**Author's Note:**

> I don't yet know exactly where Faeted3 starts, so it's not impossible that this will actually become a chapter in the story, later. No promises that you won't be seeing it again sometime soon. 
> 
> In the meantime, enjoy our boys trying hard to learn and grow. :)


End file.
